


Dark Necessities

by Yaysies



Category: Lucifer (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, All of the Tropes, EVERYONE is here - Freeform, Fluff and Humor, Gen, WIP, i will finish this eventually, sorry guys but me inspiration went bye bye and im waiting for it to come bacc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21544750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yaysies/pseuds/Yaysies
Summary: The one where Lucifer is low-key kidnapped by the Avengers and high-key sort of (definitely) accidentally causes the apocalypse.Set after the Lucifer season 2 finale (because season 3 sucked, let’s be honest)Also before Infinity War, directly after Ragnarok and Homecoming + we can all agree that Endgame never happened.
Comments: 33
Kudos: 181





	1. Magnolia

**Author's Note:**

> Title by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
> 
> Set after the Lucifer season 2 finale (because season 3 sucked, let’s be honest)  
> Also before Infinity War, directly after Ragnarok and Homecoming and we can all agree that Endgame never happened. Also, the accords are dead, everyone sort of made up after Civil War and SHIELD is a thing again ‘cuz the plot requires it and I don’t wan’ make up some bullshit about how and why. It just IS, okay? 
> 
> Also, here is the playlist I listen to while writing, my friend made it for me. I base the title of each chapter off of the song that inspires me most.  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7CQu8lxPMauWoApSKUddh0?si=km1yy_cfTcybt2ltLpwyMA

"Hold on officer I know that I'm a danger to myself

And it shows, 'cause I'm on the other side of the law

There's no way tonight, as far as I know

That heaven will take me, so I'm staggering home"

**Magnolia -** Gang of Youths

* * *

**2011 A.D. : Hell**

Long black nails rake the cold, ash stained stone columns, savouring every bump and feel.

Pathetic, yes, but that’s what a few millennia of being caged out of a physical body in the depths of tartarus do to a goddess. 

Dark clouds of ash and soot screen light and shower her pale, clammy skin as dilated pupils dart between columns. She feels like a corpse dragging herself from a grave. She’s not that far off, really.

Hell is just as arrogantly grey and abismable as always, apart from the the golden ring of light breaking the shrouding cloud around a tall shadow-cast pillar looming on the non-existent horizon. Of course, the lightbringer. The throne. It’s all coming back to her now.

Her father’s betrayal, her death and rise in hell. The Divine War, the fight for hell's throne.

She best stay well hidden, given the current power imbalance...

As divine as her fantasies of tearing the angelic bastard down from his throne are, she’s much too weak to actually stand a fighting chance against him as of current.

Speaking of weakness, where are his pesky little flesh-faced slaves and why aren’t they already shoving her back behind her giant reinforced door?

Maybe Hell has finally realised that when it chose between the two leaders, it chose the runt of the pair. God knows the imbecile wasn’t crafted for the job, unlike how her own father made sure she was well trained in commanding legions of soldiers to victory.

How she can’t wait to see her tyrant of a father down here if he ever dies.

Or if she can ever kill him.

Emerald eyes shine darkly with new purpose, black dreadlocks of hair slip into the shadows as demons begin to crow her escape.

* * *

**2018 A.D.**

Purpose. Wings. Destiny.

The three things that he wants least weigh him down as Lucifer staggers to his feet, oblivious to the hiss of scorching sand against his bare feet.

It’s ironic, really. Even his brightest star agrees that he deserves to burn in a pit of fire.

Perhaps he does.

Indignantly tucking his wings away for re-butchering at a later date and cursing his father’s name with every step, he walks for miles. Maybe he doesn’t. All he can see is sand and distant mountains anyway and it’s not like there’s really much to go off of.

His mouth tastes like fire and feels like sandpaper. Like hell.

A few maybe-miles and some unidentifiable amount of time later, Lucifer begins to wonder if he’s dead, trapped in a hell loop. He’ll be forced to walk forever until he has no choice but to use the offensive appendages forced upon his shoulders.

The longer he stumbles, the slower he becomes, the heavier the weight of unwanted ‘glorious purpose,’ the more he believes it.

How is he _burning_ , anyway? Heat nor fire has never affected him before. More importantly, how did he get here? Well, the _how_ is rather obvious. His father. _Obviously_ . Bastard won’t leave him alone, free will is unreachable even in his dreams, story of his life. What confuses Lucifer is why Dad would leave him _here_ of all places.

It’s then that he stumbles upon a road and a rotting sun bleached wooden sign that reads _‘Devil’s Playground, California.’_

If his throat wasn’t currently composed of dust particles and divine jerky, he might have laughed. Instead, he ducks into the slim shadow behind the questionable wooden structure, heaving a sigh as his eyelids are able to slowly return to their natural, non-squinting shape.

The road stretches to the horizon both directions in an obnoxiously straight line, but Lucifer can only see one way as he rests his back against the signpost and lays parallel to the searing black tar on the scalding white-orange sand.

In a state of clouded bloodshot vision, heatstroke-like wavering consciousness and impaired judgment, Lucifer makes a mental list as his eyes glaze over and stare unseeingly into the distance.

  1. Wait for a motor-vehicle to pass by
  2. Borrow said motor-vehicle and drive to civilisation
  3. Call Chloe.



He does none of these things before his world fades to black and his head lolls back against the splintered, sunbleached wood.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When Sam volunteered to chauffer Steve back from the millionth post-accords meeting with the UN, he didn’t realise how hecking _far_ the drive from California back to Upstate New York was.

Does he regret not taking the plane with Stark, Barton and ‘Tash? Yes.

Does he want to complain about having to drive for an additional _seven days_ when everyone else will be back at the Compound within the hour? Uh yup.

Does he understand why Steve doesn’t want to fly in anything other than a quinjet? Regretfully, also yes.

The guy crashed a plane just like Stark’s and woke up 70 years in the future. If that doesn’t cause some PTSD, then either Steve is an emotionless brick wall or everyone else on the planet are a bunch of pussies.

Nevertheless, one thing that Sam _does not_ is understand why the frick a very white british man is dying on the side of the road in the middle of fucking nowhere.

“Is he breathing?” Steve asks in his ‘war-hardened soldier’ voice, pushing the door of the slightly pervy white van they’d hired closed as he hurries out beside Sam.

“Yeah, but only just,” Sam marvels, crouching down in the dust beside the pasty man, “pass the med kit.”

It takes them all of 20 minutes to wrap up the worst of the burns along the top of the shoulders in white bandages and wipe the rest clean, steering clear of the blistering on the bottom of the guy’s feet.

“I guess he’s coming with us then,” Sam muses, shoving the first aid kit back into the oversized glove box, “no hospitals around here…”

“Yeah,” Steve acknowledges, a wayward finger scratching subconsciously at his chin, “I guess so.”

Sam nods along, in agreement but mostly just wanting to get the guy in the truck so that Sam can get back into the van with the air-con. 

They stand there in a semi-awkward silence for a few moments, leaning against the perv truck with their arms crossed, before Sam starts to fidget, feeling slightly like stalkers as they stare at a mostly naked unconscious man.

Sam coughs to break the weird silence and ambles to a crouch beside the guy, loosely grasps his calves and looks expectantly up at Steve, who is yet to move.

“Grab the shoulders?” he prompts dubiously.

Steve blinks, lifts his head slightly and arches an eyebrow as if he’d only just noticed that Sam was there in the first place. 

Reading the situation, he straddles the guy around the waist and pretends to lift _with_ Sam, but ultimately he might as well be lifting Sam as well and probably couldn’t tell the difference. Sam is completely at peace with this fact, but proceeds to let himself think that he’s helping for the sake of his own conscience.

  
  
  


Half an hour later, Sam is driving and they still haven’t passed a single building. Wait no, there was this half destroyed temple thing five minutes back. More accurately, they haven’t passed a single building that has been accessed in the 21st century.

The passenger seat, previously Steve’s seat; is folded down with Steve now sitting uncoordinatedly on top of it a few meters away from unconscious mystery man (now geniously dubbed Derek) who is _still_ napping.

“how do you think he got out here? I’d say he’s a jail runner except there aren’t any jails around here...”

“Mmmm,” Sam agrees, not really listening as he mult-itasks driving and searching google maps for somewhere they can hand nearly dead Derek off to get the help he needs. After the whole ‘Captain America is a criminal’ kerfuffle two years back, the last thing that he and Cap need is a civilian found dead in the back of a shady ass van.

“Did you see those scars on his back when we were patching him up?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“It looks like he was experimented on or something. Remember that HYDRA base in Greenland last year?”

Sam doesn’t, but is busy trying to single handedly zoom in on a service station that is supposedly a few miles up.

“ _Sam_.”

He grimaces and lowers the phone to his lap, “Yeah.”

Steve glares at the phone disapprovingly and states dryly, “you know it's _illegal_ to drive and use your phone.”

Sam frowns and scoots the phone over to Steve, “yeah, well then you try to figure out what to do with this guy. He’s _dying,_ Steve.”

Unfortunately for dying Derek, there is only one app that Steve knows how to use; 'the phone one'. Unless he’s going to call 911 _again,_ there’s nothing Steve can do.

“Why not call Barton?”

Sam glares at the road through the windscreen and whines, “you _know_ why.”

Steve snorts, “you’re still mad about the car thing?”

Biting silence is his only answer.

“Okay then. Stark?”

“He’ll _tell_ Barton.”

It’s Steve’s turn to glare.

“‘He’s _dying,_ Sam,’” Steve parrots back at him.

Sam continues to scowl at the road. _Stupid Clint._

The phone rings. Sam regrets.

Derek better appreciate this.

* * *

**2012 A.D. : Hell**

He is no stranger to the underworld. Or at least, so he thought.

This can’t be Hell.

Hell is an endless expanse of ash, stone and corridors. A maze that keeps switching, an endless labyrinth, a fireless pit of fire.

This is a box of black steel that shines faintly in the dark light. It’s unfamiliar, unwelcoming. It’s _wrong_.

Loki has been to hell countless times, but Loki has never died before.

“Loki, Odinson.”

The voice seems to vibrate within the walls, a deep earthy growl with a tone neither masculine nor feminine.

“Welcome to eternity. You will never leave.”

Loki only stands taller, “I am no stranger to death. I am a god, _I_ am your ruler.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” the voice chuckles, “although, yes. I suppose you _are_ a god…”

Only one being should hold this kind of power over hell.

“Lucifer?”

The sound of clicking heels and scraping nails circle the box, a wolf stalking a rabbit trapped in a cage.

“Not quite.”

Loki furrows his brows, his long and sweaty black hair plastered to his forehead as he turns to pace in slow, cautious circles.

“What do you want?”

“A favour,” the walls sing.

“What kind of favour?”

“You give me the Earth, I’ll give you your life.”

There is a pause. No sound can be heard but the roaring of brimstone beneath the dimension’s crust.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Loki swallows.

“Who are you? How are you doing this?”

The walls begin to fissel away, inky blackness fading away to translucence.

“I am the firstborn, the rightful queen of this universe.”

The stones beneath Loki’s black boots begin to rumble.

“But I suppose you can just call me... Hell.”

The last thing he sees are emerald eyes, not unsimilar to his own, peering hungrily into his very soul from the shadows of hell’s stone columns.

When he wakes, he stands in a vast grassy field.

Asgard? Midgard?

A blue tinged portal swirls open before him. The tesseract stares at Loki tauntingly, he walks through the dark window towards it's light. As innocent mortals rain fire down upon him, Loki begins to understand the terms of what he has just agreed to.

Breaking the cube and summoning the scepter, he hopes his brother would someday forgive him.

“Sir? Please, put down the spear.”

He studies the weapon.

_Fight,_ Hell commands.

He does.

“I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

His words couldn’t ring any truer, not that anyone would believe him after what he was about to do.

Loki never understood why Lucifer rebelled, even as they fought side by side in the Divine War. 

When he asked, Lucifer would always answer, “ _all I_ wanted _was free will._ ”

Now he understands. It’s all a lie.

The god of mischief, the lord of hell.

Neither of the two understood why they were, and yet here they are.

“We have no quarrel with your people.”

Is this what He wanted? How can this be God’s plan?

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot,” he agrees seethingly.

Lucifer was right all along. 

“I come to a world made free.”

“Free from what?”

“Freedom,” he states simply, “freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that, you will know peace.”

  
  
  


From hell, Hela watches on eagerly. Oh, her little brother. Fooled so easily, learning so quickly.

Things will all turn out eventually. She has nothing but time, afterall.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quotes in that last bit are from the first Avengers movie.
> 
> Please comment, I'd love to know what you think and plz tell me if you find any errors. Also, I am happy to read suggestions, the plot isn't quite set in stone yet.  
> Updates won't be regular, I have no schedule.
> 
> ps. I'm Australian so if you find any Aussie slang in here let me know and I'll fix it.


	2. Unbelievers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So basically, the other night my undiagnosed (but probably definitely should be) insomnia was like “hey, remember that fanfic you be stumped with?” Im like... nah yeah?  
> And then it punched me in the stomach and was like “you feel that? that’s iNspIRatIoN.”  
> Aka hi i’m back and i wrote this instead of sleeping

“If I'm born again I know that the world will disagree.

Want a little grace but who's gonna say a little grace for me?”

**Unbelievers** \- Vampire Weekend

* * *

**2018 A.D, Space**

The soft sway of space travel and the rhythmic thrum of the damaged air conditioning unit soothes him to sleep.

When Loki’s consciousness returns, he doesn’t wake up.

Staring into the pitch blackness of the underworld, Loki muses to himself; he can’t be awake. It’s impossible to  _ wake up _ if you’re dead. 

The remaining truth reins clear in his mind. He’s been summoned by the lord of hell.

The darkness is overwhelming, the only differentiation between the thin air and the sharp landscape are dim silver outlines of light bouncing off solid substances only to be lost in a sea of ash thickened air.

Craning his head upward to peer into the void of lightless cloud which is the sky, Loki’s eyes squint to scan the uncertain horizons for a signifying break in which darkness cowards away from as light and power falls from the absence of cloud. 

Unable to spot anything resembling the ruler’s signalling beacon of light, it’s immediately clear to Loki that the lightbringer is absent from Loki’s current plane of existence.

The only reason his pseudo-role-model-that-he’s-really-only-met-twice’s absence from his usual perch upon the usual trillion foot tall obsidian pillar/throne doesn’t push him to realise that something is off is because there are infinite dimensions in hell.

One separate plane of hell for every one of the waking worlds. Lucifer could be in anyone one of those.

It’s as the enormous heavy metal gates to his so-called ‘domain’ swing open weightlessly at the light touch of his fingers, that he realises that something is wrong.

Now don’t get him wrong; there is  _ always _ something wrong in hell. A day on a waking world is equal to exactly anywhere from a second to a millenia in the underworld. The lack of ‘wrongness’ in hell would be entirely wrong in itself.

A shiver is sent down Loki’s spine as the weight of his realisation truly dawns on him.

Hell is  _ silent _ .

The clap of his steps on soot-covered stone floors echo from hexagonal pillar to pillar as he walks shifting narrow ‘alleys’ towards where he remembers to be the palace.

His unease grows with every unmoving, broken or open door he passes.

Without passing a single active hell loop or wayward demon, he eventually reaches the palace.

Dust showers his face as he apprehensively breaks the seal of a cool metal door, unleashing an eerie scream of shrieking metal against the black marble floor into his soundless surroundings.

Stepping through what he had thought would be a doorway to the answers to questions that had been growing inside him like parasites since he’d ‘died’ in his sleep, he is greeted with

yet more questions.

The room is just as he remembers it.

A lonely steel chair in one corner, an unused king bed in the other next to a locked chest containing God knows what. On second thought, he probably doesn’t. 

“Lucifer?” Loki calls, knowing he won’t receive an answer.

The center of the room displays a miserable piano; sleek, black and never to make a single sound. There is a cabinet mounted on the furthest wall, decorated with expensive bottles of tasteful alcohol. It really is a pity that as soon as the drinks entered the realm they immediately staked a tang as toxic as the sour ash which pollutes the rest of the realm.

Lucifer used to call this bleak, fancy hell-hole home. Loki had always thought it was Lucifer’s own hell-loop.

Now that he thinks of it, what in Odin’s name was he doing here? This room is out of bounds for any being besides hell’s king and the last place Loki would ever find answers.

Lucifer isn’t  _ here _ . Loki already  _ knew that _ .

He’d been drawn to this place like a moth to a lightbulb, but to what end?

Silence is engulfed by a sudden eruption of sound as the door swings shut behind Loki.

Whirling around, he summons a spear in a flicker of green light and stumbles backward into a wall of coarse black fur, thrumming with warmth yet without the signature pulse of the living.

Loki can’t contain a sharp hiss of surprise as all too familiar emerald eyes fill his vision.

_ Hell. _

The figure before him scoffs, “by the look on your face, I’d say you're surprised to see me.”

The voice isn’t like he’d remembered. It doesn’t rumble tonelessly from ever direction like syllables constructed out of the clanging of desperate pounding of doors.

Instead, it sounded feminine.  _ Familiar _ .

“ _ No,  _ it can’t- it’s not _ … how? _ ”

It makes just as much sense as it didn’t. Fenris the Wolf stands behind him, panting hot air and slobber down his neck. Hela stands before him… alive.

“I’d imagine you’re surprised to see me.”

Discomfort drives his white-knuckled hands to clench around his summoned weapon, uncertainty whispers in his ear, commanding him to end her whilst he still has the chance.

Loki shakes his head, “how can this be? I- we watched you die, burn in flames.”

Hela’s black hair falls over her shoulder as she turns her head to look at him with cold green eyes, “dear brother, I thought  _ you _ were supposed to be the cunning one. How could you be so naive?”

In the blink of an eye Loki’s raging emotions get the best of him as he closes the distance between them. His spear pierces his sister’s heart as he hisses, “ _ I am.” _

Loki isn’t surprised when she shoves Loki backward, pulling the weapon out without so much as a grimace and tossing it carelessly aside. He can’t say he’s not disappointed, however.

She sighs and continues with annoyance now edging her tone, “ _ flames _ , little brother? You think Hell would perish in fire? I thought you’d've figured it out by now, I suppose I gave you too much credit.”

Clouds of confusion fogging his thoughts are blown away as it finally clicks.

Ragnarok was never Hela’s downfall as they’d all foolishly believed it to be. It was her uprising.

What better way to find her way into her would-be kingdom than to have two arrogant pawns bring it right to her?

They’d thought they were winning as they watched her body being engulfed by flames. Instead, they’d been watching hellfire pull her home with open arms.

She nods slowly, a slow smirk slithering across her dimly outlined features.

“Why are you telling me this? You know we’ll just come for you.”

If possible, her grin widens.

“To gloat, little brother. Why else?”

He scowls but the confused expression is more prominent on his face.

“I’ve won," she rolls her eyes and states blandly, "I’m offering for you to join the winning team. Afterall, you’ve been on my side since the beginning.”

“By  _ force. _ ”

If only he'd known...

“Who’s counting?”

Loki's eyes narrow, “you say that you ‘won.’ Asgard perished and now you're stuck in _hell_. How is this not worse than father's imprisonment?”

Hela rolls her eyes again, “you think I’m trapped here? If so, then who’s keeping me here?”

Loki glares at her dubiously, “the prince of darkness. Your  _ king. _ ”

His sister laughs breezily, leaning condescendingly into the shadows, “don't you mean the _would-be_ prince of darkness?”

His brows furrow as he subconsciously steps away from her.

“Oh, so you haven’t heard?" Hela teases, "pity. However, if that’s _really_ the case, I think I’ll keep that little detail to myself. I can’t be spilling  _ all  _ my secrets so soon, little brother. This is just the beginning.”

“Where are the demons?” Loki demands.

“Working.”

“The damned?”

“Searching.”

_ For what? Why? _

Loki grits his teeth, “you know I’d never help you.”

Abruptly, she leaps towards him and her sharp black nails press painfully into his throat.

“Well then, you’re wasting my time,” she hisses, her words blowing warm air over Loki's clammy face.

Her words echo, until she's gone. So is Fenrir, as is the palace. The walls, the sky, the light, the shadows...

He wakes up in a cold sweat, weak tears leaking from his eyes. Somehow, Loki doubts this could be Morpheus’ doing.

_ 'This is only the beginning',  _ she had said.

The metal floors of the ship are cold beneath his bare feet as he slips through the corridors surrounding the main room where all of Asgard’s people sleep lightly in the artificial night.

How did she- Why would Lucifer help her? Hell's king would sooner walk the heavens than he would let someone break his laws. The damned belong in damnation, but when they escape where could they go?

Loki reaches the front of the ship where his heavily sleep deprived brother slumped heavily in the pilot's seat, watching tiredly and boredly as the autopilot ship soars toward Midgard at what seemed like a snail’s pace.

_ She tricked me. I helped her. She tricked me, she tricked- _

“Thor,” Loki’s voice sounds fragile even to his own ears.

He receives no response.

“ _ Brother _ ,” he tries again, this time earning the attention of a single blue eye blinking itself back to alertness.

“Hmf?”

_ She’s planning. Planning, plan- _

“It’s Hela. She’s alive.”

* * *

**2018 A.D, Avengers Compound, Upstate NY**

The last he remembers is sun, sand and the  _ lovely _ smell of his own burnt flesh, along with the positively thrilling sensation of his body trying to eat itself for nutrients.

His first thought is  _ white _ . He sees a roof. Maybe a floor? It’s a building of some sort.

The light is almost blinding, so he squints his annoyingly sensitive eyes shut before he can determine anything else.

“ _ -oke up. Someone get Dr Cho. _ ”

The voices are muffled as though he’s deep underwater, or perhaps just very drunk.

Heavens, how many has he  _ had _ to be  _ this _ hungover?

He must black out again because the next thing he knows, there’s some dark haired human female in a lab coat trying to  _ blind  _ him with a tiny silver torch.

“Pupils are equal and reactive to light,” she drones as if she’s said the words thousands of times before, “sir, keep your eyes open. Can you hear me?”

Slapping her hand away, Lucifer tries to pull himself upright only to collapse weakly back onto what feels like a medical examination table, he realises.

“Yes, I can bloody well  _ hear _ you-” he croaks before lapsing into a fit a fit of wheezing coughs and rolling onto his side.

Ugh, dehydration is the  _ devil _ . He feels like his insides of made of sandpaper, but that probably just all the sand that had found its way inside of him earlier.

All of a sudden, the hands are back. Restricting, restraining. He can’t move, can’t move, can’t breathe-

His vision flares red.

Looking back, Lucifer decides that Dr Linda would have something to say (under similar circumstances she once went as far to accuse him of having ‘PTSD,’ which was insulting and utterly blasphemous) about his rather violent default reaction to the situation.

Lucifer blames Dad and an eternity of dwelling in hell with everyone out to get him. Although, he supposes all that was Dad’s fault too...

* * *

Sam is unsurprised when it turns out the guy they rescued (unofficially dubbed, ‘Derek’) is a crazy.

Like, a  _ real _ psychopath. You know, a  _ true _ ding-a-ling.

The first indication was when they found him in the middle of a wasteland, burnt, blistered and topless. The second was probably when he woke up briefly on the quinjet and murmured, “br’ng m’r the goat,” through flakey lips, caked with dried blood.

He was sure, however, that something wasn’t quite right with the guy when he woke up and immediately punched Helen into the medbay curtain with the strength of a sumo wrestler.

Somehow, things only went downhill after they managed to properly restrain Derek. As soon as Steve grabbed him, the guy went as limp and pale as rice paper.

Well, the whole ‘floppy-as-a-fish’ situation was new. Dude was already pale as heck.

Maybe Derek was dropped on his head as a kid? Like, bigtime.

Workplace health and safety laws decide for them that they had to send him to a proper hospital to be treated, seeing as Derek nor his family had consented to his being held in a high-security, weaponised, private facility.

Derek is left unattended for all of 2 minutes max as Sam and Cho fill the paramedics in on the very little information known about the stranger they found in the desert.

When Sam returns, following Cho through the drawn open curtain and into the room with two paramedics at their heel, the bed’s sheets are drawn aside and all that remains of Derek is a crinkled dent where he had been laying semi-consciously just moments before.

The bed is empty.

The bed is empty, because a 6’3 giant is standing beside said bed, raiding the small medication cupboard mounted on the wall.

The man turns around and innocently slips a bottle of pills into the pale blue gown's pocket loose and raises a dark brow.

“Why,  _ hello _ there,” he purrs, not even trying to hide it as he blatantly checks out all four women  _ and _ men in the room with huge dark eyes.

6’3 drug smuggler is Derek. Derek is a 6’3 drug smuggler.

Somehow, neither of those things suprise Sam.

Nonetheless, Sam is stumped. Mostly because of the fact that somehow in the matter of 2 minutes, Derek’s 3rd degree burns along with every single visible injury that he  _ had _ disappeared beneath a layer of perfect white skin.

The first thing that dawns on Sam is that Steve had been right and Derek is  _ definitely  _ some sort of mutant.

The second is that even if they  _ hadn’t _ just caught the guy trying to steal medication, Sam would be under the impression that the guy was a druggie. In literally less than 5 minutes, the guy had gone from angry sumo-wrestler on steroids to scared-shitless rice-paper roll, and now to Mr. calm and composed.

The three qualified professionals in the room quickly wrestle Derek back onto the table, lowering him down carefully as if he’s a jenga tower until he’s sitting down with awkwardly long legs hanging over the side.

Sam is just left to blink and mentally slap himself for not further considering Steve’s theory.

Silence falls in the room.

Sam being Sam, he just has to do  _ something  _ to break it.

“You’re…  _ awake _ .”

Derek’s eyes gleam up at him as if to say ‘you think?’ as he drawls (flirtatiously?) with oozing sarcasm, “why, you should meet the _detective_.”

Sam doesn’t understand. He really doesn’t.

* * *

The two paramedics have decided that everyone who was previously claiming that Derek is a victim of severe sunburn, heatstroke and dehydration are insane. 

Sam is on the verge of agreeing with them.

“hmm,” Derek muses, eyeing up the needles and syringes on the wheely pathology trolly as a highly confused pathologist tries to continue doing her job, “no, none of these will do. Why, have you any that were forged in hell?”

He says it so casually that even Sam, a very qualified and experienced therapist, has to doubletake.

The lady promptly assumes that Derek is mentally ill and fixes him with a sympathetic smile, glancing across the room to meet Sam’s eye as if to ask, ‘he  _ is _ mentally ill, right?’

Sam just shrugs.

“You see, I’ve tried these ones before. They never work, that’s why I-” he lifts his forearm to his nose and inhales sharply, “-if you know what I mean.”

“Oh,” he lady grimaces in understanding.

In the end the poor pathology lady doesn’t manage to draw any blood. If he’s honest, Sam is kind of glad. This way, the world will never have to know what kind of drugs are wrecking havoc in that guy's blood stream.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I 100% happy with it? Not even close.  
> Am I happier with it than the other seven drafts a wrote? Eh. Probably.
> 
> Side-note: thank you everyone for being so supportive about the first chapter. I really didn't expect people to read this, but the jokes on me cuz obviously people can read it. It's online.
> 
> Thank you for reading ppls <3  
> Byesies til next time.


	3. In The Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me at 8pm: *checking word count  
> Internally: yeah I'll just write another 500 words and then sleep  
> Me at 10pm: well I guess I'm not sleeping until I've posted this...  
> Me at 1am: *spits chapter out
> 
> Happy reading, because I reassure you I'm not sleeping tonight :D

Just when you think it's all over

It's where it all starts

It sounds like an angel is calling my name

It might be the devil, but they all sound the same

**In The Dark** \- 3 Doors Down

* * *

Whoever said  _ ‘there’s no rest for the wicked’ _ was lying.

Lucifer loves sleep, and although the word ‘bed’ doesn’t quite describe the contraption he’s lying on, he’s grown quite fond of the dainty little curtained room.

Perhaps if he were to ask nicely enough, one of the doctors here could chop his wings off  _ for _ him… it really  _ is _ a hassle trying to reach them himself.

He’s nearly disappointed that he’ll be on his merry way back to L.A. as soon as the lovely doctor whom he may have wrongly assaulted earlier returns with an official clearance from whatever facility he’s in. Lucifer doesn’t like to have any strings attached.

It’s now, as Lucifer is staring contemplatively at the small yellow stained on the wall across from him that the curtain beside his ‘bed’ swings open again.

He’s expecting the lovely nurse, but instead he gets a large group of men dressed in rather unflattering uniforms, if he does say so himself.

“Can I help you?” he asks in a tone laced with confusion.

Lucifer is quite certain that it is considered impolite to barge into someone’s space in such private facilities, but the rude men do just that. Not that he’s to judge.

“You’re coming with us,” one of the men in the front tell him whilst the rest of the uniformed creatures grabbed his arms and pull him to his feet.

Beginning to question whether this medical facility is corrupt or just on one of the more… abrupt… earths that Dad has dumped him, Lucifer is rather speechless for the first few stumbling strides out the curtain.

Then realising that he has no idea where the men are taking him, he jerks out of their grip only to be grabbed so tight it even stings his skin the tiniest bit.

“If you wanted to hold hands, you could have just said so,” he complains, knowing that if he pulled away any harder he might just rip their arms off.

The devil won’t go down without a fight, but Lucifer ultimately can tell that to get away from these humans he’d have to kill them.

He flails weakly for the sake of being a pain until the humans roughly pull him to a halt. One of the men at the front pulls out a set of handcuffs and works on wrapping them around Lucifer’s wrists.

“Oh,” he squeals lowly as the cool steel contraptions lock against his pale skin whilst the men begin to drag him onwards again, “ _ Kinky _ .”

* * *

As a certified counselor and therapist, Sam finds it easier than most to interpret people.

The Avengers team is comprised of a very…  _ diverse… _ group of people.

No matter how hard he tries to describe it more professionally, Sam always ends up putting it like this;

Steve, even though he loves the guy, is an absolute rule-following robot on every level except physical.  _ Clint is a child _ , Thor is practically always off-world and no one has seen Bruce since the Ulton debacle. Stark is somehow simultaneously the most paranoid and careless person  _ on the planet _ and Natasha? Well, does anyone really know  _ anything  _ about Natasha?

In some instances, the combination of all their clashing personalities work together surprisingly well.

This is not one of those instances.

As it turned out, Steve  _ also  _ noticed Derek’s distinct lack of burnt skin cells and while Sam was busy trying to fend off the last of the judgy paramedics, took it into his own hands to inform the whole team that the guy they had rescued was actually a mutant.

Thus, Sam is completely obvious to a team of Stark’s security employees who rush past him in the med bay hallway.

With wide eyes, Sam watches the same team rigidly escort a bewildered Derek in handcuffs back the same way the came from.

Sam thinks he hears the psychopath flirting with the security guards even as he’s dragged out of the ward, but doesn’t have time to dwell on it as he notices a figure looming near the elevator.

Stark watches blankly as silver elevator doors slide closed, either too stubborn to pay Sam any notice as he rushes over or just lost in his huge brain.

“Tony!” Sam says, admittedly a  _ little _ harshly, as he strides into hearing range, “What’s going on?”

The man in question looks affronted as he crosses his arms, “You tell me, Jetpack. That guy might just be the most obvious  _ spy _ I’ve ever seen, and  _ you _ brought him into the compound.”

Sam a few years ago would have argued that ‘spies’ don’t exist. Sam today watches as the elevator doors fly open again and Natasha glides over to the vending machine. 

He lets his argument die on his lips.

“He’s a spy?”

Tony shrugs, “He’s a mutant.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to  _ cuff _ him!” Sam exclaims with arms flaying out to the sides.

“I didn’t cuff-,” Stark splutters, “they’re  _ power dampeners,  _ Sam. We’re not  _ arresting _ him.” He pauses thoughtfully, “yet.”

Sam wants to argue further, but holds his inner turmoil back with a pout.

“How did you get Steve to agree to this?”

The genius grins proudly, “I didn’t. It was his idea.”

_ Of course it was _ , Sam rolls his eyes. All that  _ drama _ over the accords, just for both parties to pull a Ross of their very own. Seems about right.

“Now, if we’re done playing the  _ blame game _ , we better go help,” Stark enthuses and then adds as if an afterthought, “Because… the team’s waiting for us.”

Yeah, right. More like _ ‘Because I’m right and I want to prove it.’ _

Sam opens his mouth to add that  _ Tony  _ was the one blaming  _ him  _ in the first place _ ,  _ but the other man stalks off without waiting for an answer.

* * *

_ These humans do not like him very much _ , Lucifer muses to himself as he sits in all of his handcuffed glory up against the thick glass wall of a holding cell. Or maybe it’s an aquarium, the resemblance is  _ uncanny _ .

Frankly, he has no idea what’s going on. From his time with the detective (whom likely is very displeased with him seeing as he’s been missing for Dad knows how long with no explanation that she’s likely to believe), Lucifer has learnt that it’s illegal to arrest someone without cause.

So either this one  _ very  _ corrupt earth, or he’s not seeing something here.

Well, he’s not seeing  _ anything  _ here. Mostly because the lights are brighter than his stars and marbled floors and ceilings reflect it into his eyes from  all angles , but metaphorically speaking; he must be overlooking something.

Time passes by. Patience isn’t one of Lucifer’s virtues.

Although he  _ could _ take the handcuffs off and walk out of the cell quite easily, Lucifer stays.

One question continues to tug at his thoughts.

Why is he in a cage _already_?

He’d understand if they reacted this way after he'd introduced himself... Could they already know?

Call him curious, but he intends to stick around long enough to find out.

* * *

“Okay, Fri. Hit me.”

Clint, Sam, Steve, Natasha and Tony gather in the observation room, peering into the temporary holding cell as they have been for the last fifteen minutes whilst they’d been waiting for FRIDAY to finish running the facial recognition scans through her systems.

“<Lucifer, Morningstar. Personal records; non-existent until 2011 when he was legally registered as a citizen of Los Angeles. Club owner of nightclub ‘Lux’, also located in Los Angeles. As of 2016, Mr Morningstar has been working as a civilian consultant for the LAPD.>”

When FRIDAY is finished reading, all Avengers stay expectantly silent as they wait for more information. 

It eventually becomes apparent that there isn’t any.

“That’s… all?”

“<I’m afraid so, Boss.>”

Natasha and Clint meet eyes, silently checking if they’d heard her right whilst Sam, Steve and Stark all narrow their eyes as they contemplatively size up their victim.

What is this devil’s deal?

* * *

Against Steve's wishes, the team makes a bet.

“I mean, come on,” Stark argues, “No one would  actually name their child after Satan. He’s  clearly a spy.”

Sam feels obliged to point out that; “You do realise that Natasha’s name backwards is literally ‘ _ Ah Satan _ .’”

Natasha promptly shoots him a death glare and sides with Stark. 

Steve, begrudgingly joins in and also claims to believe that Lucifer is a mole, despite having helped Sam bring him here in the first place.  _ Traitor _ .

Sam is  _ actually _ on the fence, but before he can state his stance Stark buts in and insists that, “Sam thinks he’s innocent!”

To which Sam replies indignantly, “I never said th-”

“Buh uh uh!” Tony cuts in again, “ _ You implied it _ . Still counts.”

As a result, Sam is stuck betting alongside Clint that Lucifer is not a spy.

Spy or not, Mr ‘Morningstar’ is an enigma.

Peering in through the one way glass, Sam’s inner counsellor comes to life.

Any  _ normal  _ person would be terrified, or at least slightly nervous, if they were convicted without knowing why.

If anything, Lucifer looks relaxed.

This could mean two things. A: Stark’s right and he’s a spy. B: he’s been through a lot of shit and seen enough things to make him used to situations such as the one he’s in.

Stark presses a button on a sleek control panel. The hiss of shifting hydraulics sound as the floor in the center of the cell slides away and a silver table, along with four chairs rise up to rest in the center of the room.

Morningstar doesn’t even look fazed.

Why does Stark have to be so extra? Like, surely they can just carry the furniture into the room. Or better yet, just  _ leave it in there  _ like any normal cell.

The automatic white door slides open and the five remaining members of the Avengers team filter into the room one by one. Each person pulls a chair out from under the table and sits down, except for Tony who crosses the room to dim the lights and remains standing near the wall.

Sam never understood why Tony defaults them so bright in the first place. Lucifer must’ve been going blind in here.

“Thank Dad,” Lucifer grumbles as he rubs at his eyes whilst looking up at the team and apprehensively surveying them from across the room.

A tense silence stretches between them before Steve thankfully takes the lead, addressing the could-be perpetrator, “Lucifer… Morningstar?”

The man in question turns his full attention to Steve, taking a thoughtful pause before responding, “The.”

So. The guy can only speak English when he’s flirting?

Cap makes a face, “Sorry?”

Lucifer rolls his eyes, “ _ The _ . I have many names but it’s Lucifer  _ the  _ Morningstar, if we’re being technical.”

Steve shakes his head slightly, “Okay. Well, uh. We’d like to ask you a few questions. If you answer them truthfully, we’ll let you go-”

“Or we, you know.  _ Won’t _ ,” Tony chimes in from the wall.

Steve purses his lips and glares frustratedly at the so called genius. 

Clint seizes the opportunity to speak up.

“So your name is  _ actually _ ‘Lucifer?’”

Lucifer frowns, “ Yes . Did you not hear me?”

“ Damn , your parents must have really hated you,” Clint whispers to himself so quietly that even Sam, sitting next to him, could barely hear.

Lucifer could too, apparently.

“You have no idea,” he murmurs to the ceiling.

* * *

  
  


The interrogation is going nowhere. 

Stark has already  _ left _ , Steve looks like he’s about to follow him, Natasha looks just about ready to torture some answers out of him and Clint is beaming at the guy like he’s the greatest person in the world.

In summary, everyone has more or less given up and Lucifer  _ probably _ is  _ not _ a spy. Although, he probably  _ does _ belong in a psychiatric unit.

Throughout the entire half hour of ‘interrogating,’ all that Lucifer has done is reply with cryptic nonsense and ask for a  _ freaking cell phone.  _

Well that and ‘ _ which earth is this?’ _

_ ‘You know what?’ Stark had laughed as he strode towards the exit, ‘I’m just gonna go check that real quick. Don’t wait up.”  _

Like seriously, who does this guy think he is? Doctor Strange? With that accent and these questions, he sure sounds like him.

“How  _ old _ are you?” Clint attempts.

“As old as time.”

“Do you have any family we could contact?” Steve tries.

“Mmm, they’d like that, wouldn’t they? Yes, I think you’d get along just nicely,” Lucifer ponders as he looks around the cell he's trapped in, “You’re  just like Him.”

The therapist inside of Sam feels like it’s going to have an aneurysm.

“Do you have a number we could try?” Sam asks with the hope that maybe his family aren’t insane too.

Lucifer scoffs, “No, again. But by all means, do pray to them. I highly doubt any of the bastards will respond.”

Natasha stands abruptly, her metal chair skidding out behind her.

“This isn’t going anywhere, he’s clearly too insane to be a HYDRA agent. I’m leaving.”

Too insane to be a HYDRA agent. Sam never thought he’d see the day.

“ _ Hydras _ ? Ugh, why didn’t you say so!” he sulks, “Forget about the  phone then, this  clearly is not my ea-” he clears his throat, “- _ the _ earth... that I came from.”

Sam meets Steve’s eyes. Natasha’s right. They’ve got to go.

* * *

Lucifer eventually comes to the decision that these humans don’t dislike him. Well, maybe  _ now  _ they do, originally they were just paranoid about him being a ‘mutant spy,’ or something equally insulting. 

More pressingly, they aren’t helping him to understand his current situation  _ at all. _

The second reason why he’d chosen stayed in this display case was so he could find out where he was, dimensionally speaking.  It's been an eternity and the short dark haired male  _ still  _ hasn’t returned to tell him which earth they inhabit. 

Honestly, what’s the point in being held captive if he can’t even get any useful information out of it?

“You imbeciles are taking too long,” he states matter of factly.

The humans have been alternating 10 minute shifts to watch over him, despite the utterly ridiculous amount of cameras already surveying the small space he is captured in.

Currently, the dark skinned one is sitting in the furthest metal chair, holding a cell phone he refuses lend to Lucifer and looking up from the screen to glower at him.

“Too  _ long _ ? It’s been like twenty  minutes .”

Lucifer sighs to himself, “twenty minutes  longer than it would have taken  me .”

He wills the locks around his wrists to click open and they do just that. Calmly, he tugs his hands out of their grasp one by one wrings them out in front of him.

The human abruptly stands with wide eyes, “ _ -How _ ?”

Lucifer puffs out a breath of air, “Well for starters, I’m quite certain I could escape using the willpower to get out of this bloody  boring fishbowl alone.”

He pushes himself off the floor and too his feet. “Also, as I  _ have _ tried to tell you, I’m not one of your skanky  mutant  beasts.”

The look on the human’s face is priceless.

To Lucifer’s delight, as he heads for the exit the human  _ actually _ tries to stop him by pulling his wrists behind his back  _ again _ .

The human is quickly suspended into the air before he crashes against the wall across the room, writhing on the ground where he’d fallen.

Knowing that he’d not thrown the mortal far enough to seriously wound him, Lucifer can’t find it in himself to feel pity.

To quote the detective, _ ‘It’s better to move forward than to stay stuck in the past.’ _

He just hopes she’ll be able to forgive him a second time.

* * *

“<Boss, it appears that Mr Morningstar has broken out of his cell.>”

He watches live security footage of a lanky, shirtless 6’3 man roaming the halls of his compound after throwing Sam, a man stronger than every one of his security employees, against a wall as though he’d weighed nothing

A hollow expression settles over Tony’s tense features.

“Friday, initiate the lockdown sequences.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You people are amazing, I can't thank you all enough for all the support. Like seriously though.
> 
> Byesies til next time <3


End file.
